


Monster

by babbleface



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Romance, but rated t for now bc there will be cursing, i might change the rating as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-11 17:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5635759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babbleface/pseuds/babbleface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey has always had trouble sleeping. One late night walk leads her out to the old ruins of a castle just outside the borders of her desert village. Something happens that she can't explain when she enters those ruins while chasing a stray cat. Somehow she crosses a boundary and ends up in the garden of a surly young man who lives alone in an isolated castle on the top of a treacherous mountain. There are secrets in this castle, and Rey will have to expose all of them if she ever wants to see her home again. The only trouble is, the longer she's in the castle in the company of the young man called Kylo Ren, the less homesick she feels. But secrets are dangerous, and Kylo Ren has been exiled to this bleak no-man's land for a very good reason. Rey must make a choice. She can forgive him his sins and show him the love he so desperately needs, or will she save herself and leave him behind, forever trapped in frigid isolation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I AM RELYO TRASH.
> 
> god i hope they don't end up being related in the movies. i mean they can't really pull a luke&leia situation again can they??? wouldn't that be a little too much?
> 
> loosely based on the idea of beauty and the beast

The moon was full, spilling silver light down over the desert dunes. The sand looked white and any colour in the landscape was washed out. Rey threw her blankets off and stood up. She crossed the small one room hut she lived in and drew open the thin curtains. she leaned out the window and looked up at the sky. The stars were bright and the night was clear. There were so signs of clouds anywhere and it had been so long since Rey had actually seen an obstruction in the sky that she was starting to forget what weather looked like. A cool breeze blew down from the dunes and brushed across her cheeks. Rey closed her eyes and inhaled. It had been so hot for the past week, hotter than she could remember it being in Jakku, and she was desperate for any kind of relief. It was hot enough that not even her ocean trick would lull her to sleep. Rey leaned further out the window and  looked out at the ramshackle village. It was quiet, except for a few stray cats and dogs nosing around garbage bins and the like. Rey left the window and pulled on her boots and yanked a loose long sleeved shirt over her head. She would take a short walk, just to the edge of the village and back. Perhaps the calm stillness of the nighttime would ease her into sleep.

 

 

Rey walked through the village, listening to the quiet sound of her boots on the hard, sandy streets. She spotting an orange and white tabby cat sitting on top of an awning, staring at her. The cat, BB-8, had been given to a young boy in the village in place of a droid that he wanted but his family could not afford to buy him. The boy and his family eventually left the village and left the cat behind. BB-8 jumped down from the awning and scaled his way down garbage bins to the street. He paused in the middle of the path ahead of Rey and looked back at her with eyes that glowed green in the moonlight. With a flick of his tail he took off down the street, heading out of the village and into the desert beyond.

Rey swore under her breath and gave chase, calling his name as she ran after him. The desert was full of all sorts of predators that would love to have BB-8 as a little midnight snack. The cat may not have been hers, but Rey didn’t like the idea of any of the village strays becoming a meal.

“BB-8 come back here you stupid cat!” she hissed. She crossed the village line and plunged into the sand dunes, following the light paw prints the cat made in the sand ahead of her. Rey kicked up sand as she ran and, huffing and puffing, crested the top of a particularly large dune just in time to see the cat disappear into the massive, sprawling ruins that lay at the base of the sandy gulley. Those ruins were dangerously unstable and gave Rey the chills, but nonetheless she braced her self and half ran, half slid, down the sand embankment to the foot of the hill.

 

 

 

“BB-8! Where are you?” Rey called. Her voice echoed across the ruins, bouncing off crumbling stone walls and wooden support beams. She couldn’t see hide nor hair of the cat, so she took a deep breath and plunged forward into the dark ruin. Rey kept calling to the cat as she tripped and stumbled over stones from the walls and beams and floorboards and the occasional sharp piece of metal. This place would be a gold mine for scrap if it wasn’t so damn unstable. She was sure that a gentle breeze would bring the whole place crashing down on her.

“BB-8? BB-8! Get back here! I see you!” Rey spotted the tabby paused on top of a crumbled ruin of a ghoulish statue. The cat spotted her and leapt off the statue, making his way on again. Rey kicked up her heels and ran after the cat. She caught up out of luck. BB-8 had stopped to examine a particularly interesting bit of rock. Rey scooped the cat up into her arms and immediately began scolding him for running off. Her momentum from chasing him carried her a few more steps out of the hulking shadow of the ruins. Rey broke off scolding abruptly as a vicious blast of frigid wind struck her. She brought a hand up to shield her face and the cat snuggled up against her. Tall trees with branches laden in snow towered over her from both sides of an enormous stone wall. Standing almost ankle deep in fresh snow Rey stared at the impossible site around her.

“Oh BB-8,” she whispered to the cat as the falling snow caught in her hair and eyelashes. “I don’t think we’re in Jakku anymore."

 

The garden was covered in snow. It had been for as long as he could remember. In fact he had never once seen a clear sky since he’d arrived at the castle. He had arrived alone, he lived for years on end in total solitude, and he fully expected to die alone, in or out of this horrible time loop he was stuck in. If his punishment ever ended he would not be welcomed back into the fold, nor would he be accepted anywhere else. He was marked out as a traitor and a murderer, someone not to be trusted. Even if he escaped this frozen hell he knew he would never encounter sympathy from anyone. 

 

 

The moon must have been full behind the clouds because his body had twisted and contorted, sending pain screaming through him. He had collapsed out in the garden in the snow, his clothes ripping and shredding as pale skin gave way to rough scales and wings and claws and talons destroyed his boots and gloves. His screams changed in his own ears to thunderous roars and when the transformation was complete he was as monstrous on the outside as he was in his heart.

His monstrous self preferred to prowl, so he stalked into the trees, digging his claws into the thick trunk of one and beginning to climb. He saw it from his bird’s eye view, something that should have been impossible.

A person standing in the middle of his garden. A young girl, a young woman really, holding an orange and white cat.

 

He leapt from the tree, leaving the swaying branches behind as the wind caught him. His shadow drew her gaze upward, but he was already out of her sightline by the time her eyes found the sky. He landed on a turret high above her and crawled down slowly, watching her. She was standing in the middle of the garden, shivering in nothing more than a loose tunic and a pair of short trousers. She was clutching the cat to her chest, pressing her nose into the top of it’s head as she turned around to leave the garden. He felt a sudden pang of panic as she approached the exit to the garden and leapt down from the castle wall, landing before her in all his monstrous glory, wings spread wide, eyes red like a demon, shaking the ground with his might.

 

 

The girl screams, stumbling backward and tripping over her own feet. Her fall is cushioned by the snow, but he hears a quiet whimper and thinks that she might be hurt. The cat is hissing and howling, struggling out of her arms, shooting off across the garden. The girl is left, heart pounding, eyes wide with fear. She struggles to get away but her knees are too weak to stand so she scrambles backward through the snow, pushing away from him with her feet. He follows her, his demon head hanging low, red eyes watching her as she backs up into a tree. She is frozen now. Her momentum is broken and the fear in her eyes has spread to the rest of her limbs. She sits shaking in the snow as he approaches her, a monster stalking his prey. He is mere feet from her when the dark clouds over head begin to lighten. The first rays of a hidden winter sun break the shadow of the night and with a horrible howl he rears up on his hind legs and contorts once again.

 

 

 

Staggering back with the force of his transformation, Kylo Ren collapsed on his back in the snow, barely feeling the cold against his bare skin as the pain faded and his vision blacked out.

 

The monster approached her swiftly; more swiftly than she could get away. Rey was stuck. She was so afraid she couldn’t move. So she shut her eyes, prayed that BB-8 got away, and waited for the end to come. She heard a roar and felt the wind of the creature’s wings on her face. A single cry of pain rang out across the garden, so human that it shocked her out of her fear. Rey opened her eyes just in time to see the wings of the creature retreat into the slender back of a naked man not much older than herself. He crumpled into the snow, face up and Rey thought that she heard a quiet sigh across the silent expanse of the garden.

 

She was shaking, both from the stress of her ordeal and the cold and the soft warmth of BB-8 returning to her jolted her out of her confused reverie. Rey stood up slowly, shaking snow off her cold-reddened hands, and took halting steps toward the place in the garden where the man lay. He was on his back, his black hair haloing his face against the bright backdrop of the snow. His eyes were closed and he breathed peacefully, as if he were asleep. The only sign of discomfort his body betrayed were the goosebumps on his arms and legs. Rey had no other choice so she bent down, grabbed the strange man under the arms, dug her heels in, and began hauling him across the garden, back toward the castle.

 

 

He woke up slowly. The first thing he noticed was that he was much warmer than he was when he went to sleep. He was lying on something hard, but was wrapped in something soft and warm. Opening his eyes blearily he realized that he was swaddled in a blanket, lying on the floor of his bedroom. The bed was next to him, stripped bare of the thick down quilt and pillows. He sat up slowly and quietly, looking around him. He was still naked under the blankets. Someone had taken the trouble to carry him all the way to his room, but not to dress him. Why?

 

 

Kylo stood up once he judged himself to be steady enough and that was when he saw her. She was lying on the chaise lounge near the window, a throw blanket pulled over her lap, her head resting on one arm. Her cat was curled up against her chest. Kylo wrapped the quilt around himself and crossed the room to the girl. She was sleeping soundly. He reached out and pulled the throw blanket up over her shoulder and then crossed the room to his wardrobe. He took out the clothes he needed, threw the quilt back on the bed and left the room. He dressed in the hallway and then strode down to the garden again. Looking out at it from just inside the castle he could see any evidence of their encounter was being quickly erased by the snow.

 

 

Kylo made a quick stop off at the library before he locked the doors behind him and then went back to his room. He replaced the quilt and pillows neatly on his bed and started a fire in the fireplace before settling down with his book in a chair across from the chaise lounge. From this chair he could see her sleeping, something that proved to be a distraction as the day went on. The girl was very pretty. Her brown hair was tied in a knot at the top of her head and her cheeks and nose were dusted with freckles. Her long eyelashes fluttered in her sleep as she dreamed. Kylo liked looking at her sleep. It was peaceful, and he soon found himself closing his book and setting it aside and pulling his chair closer to where she lay.

Who was this girl? She had appeared out of no where. He had met no one in this world, and he had certainly met anyone like her in his old world. Everything about her was a mystery. But even as Kylo pondered the mystery this girl presented he was stuck with another, tantalizingly hopeful thought: if this girl could enter his world, did it not follow that there was also a way to leave?


	2. Hell, Supposedly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why i started a new story the day before school picked up again but here we are...
> 
> i'm starting the third chapter tonight so maybe i'll have something by the end of the week...

Rey woke up to an empty room. The fire in the grate that someone had lit had burned down to embers. BB-8 was still curled up at her side, grooming one of his paws. Across the room from her the bed was made up neatly and the mysterious man had disappeared. Rey sat up and swung her feet of the edge of the chaise. She slid back into her boots and picked BB-8 up.

"Come on BB," she said. "Let's go look around."

Rey and BB-8 left the bedroom and started down the hall. Rey set BB-8 down on the floor when they came across an alcove shrouded in curtains. Rey reached up and pulled them back. She was surprised to find a portrait of two people, a man and a woman. The woman was seated in front of the man, the man rested his hand on the woman’s shoulder in the portrait and Rey noticed that the two wore matching emblems on their shoulders. Although neither of them smiled in the photo, Rey felt that they were happy to be with each other. BB-8 meowed and wove between Rey’s ankles to get her to move on. Rey followed BB-8 down the hall. The cat seemed to be making a beeline for the room at the end of the hall and took off into a run. He clawed at the base of the closed door until Rey caught up to him and opened the door. She had barely gotten the door open a crack when the cat slithered through and disappeared behind the heavy wood. Rey shouldered the door open further, poking her head into the room. She paused and barely managed to swallow a gasp.

The man she had hauled in from the snow was in the centre of the room. He was wielding a blunt sword, moving through different forms and stances fluidly. The silver blade flashed through the air. He was focused, sliding through the motions, heaving the sword through the air. Rey could see the tight muscles in his arms and back and shoulders straining against the weight of the sword. She stood behind the partially opened door, hiding in the shadows, watching as he threw down the sword and striped the black shirt he was wearing off over his head. Rey swallowed as he bent down to pick up the sword. He paused as BB-8 leapt into his line of vision, prowling closer to get a look at the sword. Rey’s eyes widened as the man turned and looked at her over his shoulder. He bent down again and picked up BB-8, despite his protests, and walked over to the door.

“Your cat,” he said, holding BB-8 out to her. Rey took the cat wordlessly, trying not to stare too obviously. Without another word the man turned and went back into the room and resumed his stance. Rey stood holding BB-8 for a minute longer and watched him resume practicing before she decided to test the boundaries. She pushed the door further open and slipped inside. She found a spot near the edge of the room and sat down, resting BB-8 in her lap. The only sign that she got that her presence was noticed was a slight turn of the head during a small pause. As Rey got more comfortable in the room she alternated between watching the man practice whenever his back was turned and dragging one of her shoelaces across the floor for BB-8 to chase. She was so involved with BB-8 that she didn’t notice when he finished his practice until he was already crouching in front of her, reaching out with one had to stroke BB-8’s back.

Rey looked up in surprise and was met with an unwavering dark eyed stare.

“Who are you?” he asked, lowering his gaze back down to the cat after a moment.

“Rey,” she said. He had a thin scar across his face, marring the skin and giving his features a harsh edge. His shirt and practice sword were lying on the ground next to him. “This is BB-8.” BB-8 yawned and rolled over onto his stomach, requesting more attention be paid to him. Rey slowly began re-lacing her boot and ventured a question of her own.

“Where am I?” 

“Don’t you know?” the man asked. Rey shook her head.

“If I knew would I ask?"

“No,” he said. “You’re in hell.” 

When Rey frowned he let slip the tiniest of smiles.

“Perhaps not hell, although it’s close enough. I’m not sure where we are exactly, but no one else has been here for as long as I can remember. You’re the first person I’ve seen in a long time.” 

“You’re alone here?” Rey asked. BB-8 was lounging between the two of them, purring softly.

“Yes,” he said. “Tell me, Rey, how did you come to be here exactly?” 

“I was chasing BB-8 and I followed him into some old ruins in the desert. Why?” 

“The desert?” He frowned. “There has been nothing but snow here since I arrived.” 

“I don’t think that the desert outside Jakku and here are the same place,” Rey said. “I don’t see how a desert could turn into a snowstorm. Anyway the only weather we’ve had in Jakku recently is sun. Hot, dry sun.” 

The man was frowning again, scratching BB-8 on the stomach. Rey realized that she didn’t know his name. She wanted to ask what had happened to him to make him turn into a monster, but she didn’t quite have the courage.

“And what should I call you?” she asked. He looked back up at her, his brow furrowing in confusion this time. “I don’t know your name but you know mine,” Rey said.

“Kylo,” he said quietly, looking back down at the cat. “Kylo Ren."

“What are you doing here in the middle of nowhere all alone, Kylo Ren?” she asked. “Most people I know don’t exile themselves because they want to.” 

“You know a lot of exiles then?” he asked. Rey couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Everyone in my village is an exile in one way or another. Including me,” she added after a pause. He looked up again, more quickly that before, and when their eyes met this time Rey’s stomach dropped very suddenly. She found it hard to break eye contact with him and all of a sudden her throat felt tight.

“This is my punishment,” he said finally. Rey wanted to look away from him but she couldn’t. A look of bitter rage crossed his face as he spoke. BB-8 made a distressed noise and lashed out with his claws. Kylo Ren had been resting his hand on the cat and tightened his grip in voluntarily. BB-8 scratched him along the wrist and he snatched his hand back. Their eye contact broke and Rey felt a strange sense of relief and disappointment. Her stomach was all twisted in knots, but it was easier to breathe now that she wasn’t staring into his dark eyes. She didn’t ask what he was being punished for. Instead she scooped up BB-8 and stood up. He followed her, slowly, picking up his shirt and sword. Standing in front of him Rey realized how tall he was. She was about eye level with his collar bones, which, incidentally, were still damp with sweat. She swallowed again, her mouth suddenly dry, and shook herself.

“I don’t know where Jakku is, but I can tell you that we are on the top of a very steep mountain surrounded by some of the most dangerous animals I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how you’re going to get home, but I don’t think you’ll be able to leave for a while. In the meantime you’ll have to stay here. I’ll show you to a room.” 

He led Rey out of the practice room and down the hall, back toward the first bedroom. They came back up to the alcove that Rey had found when she was first exploring. Kylo Ren paused at the alcove and stared at the portrait for a moment. Strange, warring emotions flickered across his face before he reached out and snapped the curtains shut over the portrait. Rey didn’t say anything as they continued on. They passed the bedroom Rey had been in previously and went all the way down the hall to another room. Kylo opened the doors and stepped aside. Rey entered slowly, setting BB-8 down again so that he could explore. The room was identical to the previous one, with one noticeable difference, the window didn’t look out onto the garden, but instead looked out over the edge of a cliff.

“You can sleep here. There should be clothes in the wardrobe, although I don’t know if they will fit you. It’s too cold here for what you’re wearing. I have keys to all the doors in the castle. If you want to go in a room come and ask me.” 

 Rey turned around to ask why he didn’t just leave all the doors unlocked, but he was already gone. She looked out down the hall just in time to see him reentering his own bedroom and shutting the door behind him.

"What do you think, BB-8?” she asked, looking down at the cat. “Do we trust him?”

BB-8 brushed against her ankles and then jumped up onto the bed where he curled up and promptly went to sleep. Rey rolled her eyes. It was no use, talking to a cat.

 

 

Kylo shut the door to his room and leaned back against the wood. He let the practice sword and his shirt slip out of his fingers and hit the floor. His heart was beating fast and his breath was coming in quick, short bursts. He wanted to chalk this all up to his recent exercise, but he knew he was fooling himself. It was that girl. She had appeared out of no where, and now she was in his castle, calling him by his name, staring into his eyes, making him feel hope again.

He crossed the room and flung open a side door. He entered the small bathroom and dipped his hands into the washstand water. He vigorously washed his face in the cold water, hoping to chase away some of his thoughts of her, but he couldn’t manage it. 

She was a mystery.

She appeared out of no where with a cat, claiming to be from some desert land.

She was a person.

It had been years since his last encounter with another person and already he could feel the crushing solitude lifting.

Worse of all, she was a temptation.

She represented something that he had not dared to hope for. She was beautiful. A sudden outpouring of light in this dark, snowy hell he was banished to.

Rey. Even her name gave him hope.

Kylo looked up at the mirror above the washstand. His face, he could hardly recognize it now with all his loneliness and exhaustion showing on it. He stared at himself a moment longer before he turned away and went to fetch a new shirt.

He should not hope for anything. He was a monster and he was being punished for his monstrous deeds. It was just and right that he be here, alone, miserable, with only his sins to keep him company. He would have to get rid of her as soon as possible. She was far more dangerous to him than any of the predators that surrounded his bleak castle. Rey - no - that girl, she would have to go.


	3. Beast

Kylo didn’t understand what the problem was. But there was Rey, standing in front of him, arms crossed, looking extremely irritated.

“What?” he asked.

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Rey snapped. “It’s dark, it’s cold and I’m hungry and since you lock all the doors for some reason I couldn’t get food this entire time. Where the hell did you even go? BB-8 is starving!” 

“Nobody asked you to cross dimensional boundaries and invade my castle,” he muttered to himself under his breath. He dug around in the pocket of his long black fur-lined cape until he found his master key. It had been a couple of days since Rey had appeared and her shyness had worn off by the second morning. She was very good at making herself right at home.

“I never asked to accidentally cross dimensional lines and end up in the castle from hell either, and when I figure out how to get home, I’m not taking you with me,” Rey snapped back. Kylo winced and jammed the key into the kitchen doors. She wasn’t supposed to have heard that.

“I’m sorry,” he said sounding more insincere than he meant to. “I’m not used to having guests.” 

“Clearly,” Rey said. She stuck her tongue out at him and swept through the doors into the kitchen. BB-8 followed, flicking his tail in irritation as he passed Kylo. 

“To answer your question, I went for a walk,” Kylo said. He took some matches out of his pocket and lit the candle nearest to the door. The small flame crackled to life and he used it to light a torch hanging in a bracket near by. As he went around lighting a few more torches Rey began nosing through the cupboards and the icebox.

“You don’t have any food,” she said.

It was true that the cupboards were a little bare, but Kylo always managed to rustle something together. He had been noticing a strain on his resources ever since two more stomachs had been added to the household however. 

“I might have to go out hunting tomorrow. There are a few animals out there that are slow enough to kill,” he said. BB-8 made a noise that sounded like an indignant snort. “Not you,” Kylo said to the cat quietly. He sometimes talked to BB-8 when Rey was off amusing her self with exploring the castle or discovering the many uses of snow, and it was something he would prefer to keep a secret. He was sure Rey would tease him to no end about it if she found out, and frankly, thinking about it just reminded him of how very alone he was here.

“Great, I’ll come with you,” Rey said.

“What? No you won’t.” Kylo was surprised by her offer. He had made it clear many times over that the forest beyond the castle was off-limits on account of the fact that everything that lived in it could kill a man. Rey always answered cheekily that she was no man, but Kylo was determined to keep her indoors and out of the way of giant animals with talons the size of his forearm. 

He ignored her protests and nudged her out of the way so that he could take down half a loaf of bread from a shelf out of her reach. Rey slipped into the background, taking a seat at the small table in the corner. He could feel her eyes on his back as he navigated the large room looking for anything edible.

_Why hasn’t she asked about my transformations?_  He thought. She had definitely seen it when she first arrived and he’d half expected to be interrogated about it when she walked in on him in the practice room. But she had been silent on the subject. Perhaps she had convinced herself that it was a hallucination. Perhaps she was too afraid to ask. Perhaps she didn’t want to know.

The idea that she might be indifferent to his plight hurt him slightly. Kylo shook off the feeling and instead filled two glasses to the top with water and set them down on the table in front of Rey. He busied himself with serving up their meagre dinner and tried not to look her directly in the eye for the duration of the meal. It was harder than he thought it would be. 

Rey, for her part, didn’t see what the big deal was. She was offering to help catch their food which she thought was only fair seeing as he was so poorly prepared for guests.

 

 

Rey sighed and rested her chin on her hand. She had been through the whole library with a fine toothed comb and the only thing she could find out was that crossing dimensional lines was possible, in theory. Theory, she had pointed out, was not terribly helpful to her. Kylo had just rolled his eyes and shoved another book across the table at her.

The next afternoon, after a tragically sparse breakfast, Kylo announced his decision to go out hunting alone. He placed particular emphasis on the last word of his sentence and was disappearing into the snow before Rey had any time to protest. He graciously left Rey the master key, however, asking only that she left the office in the far west corner of the castle undisturbed. Rey agreed, slightly begrudgingly, and watched Kylo disappear into the mounting snow storm. Apparently what he was hunting was more active in snow storms because that was when its natural predators were slowest. Rey didn't see how Kylo could catch these things id their natural predators couldn't but didn't mention it because she sensed he was already on edge about something else.

So Rey spent the afternoon in the library again, with a mug of tea on the table and BB-8 in her lap. No matter where she looked, however, she couldn't seem to find any books on trans-dimensional travel. Finally giving up for the night Rey pushed the latest tome into an ever growing stack next to her and placed BB-8 on the floor. The cat vanished into the far reaches of the library leaving Rey all alone. Rey stared at the master key sitting on the table next to her. It seemed to be calling out to her. Rey resisted the call of her curiosity only for a moment before she snatched up the key and left the library.

The western wing of the castle was surprisingly spotless. Rey wandered down the hall slowly, running her fingers over the brocade wallpaper. The heavy red curtains covered the ceiling high windows and only a couple torches flickered on the walls. At the end of the hall a pair of large doors loomed over her. Rey rummaged the key out of her pocket and approached the door. She paused, arm out stretched, key in hand, inches from the lock. Should she really be doing this? Kylo had said not to go _in_  the room in the west end of the castle. He never said that she couldn’t unlock the door and peek inside.

  
Rey unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  
The study was tidier than she had expected. The curtains were drawn back from the window and the chair behind the desk was sitting at an angle, like someone had pushed it back while getting up to leave. It was a well-used room. The evidence in this were the books open on the desk, and the worn strip in the carpet where someone had walked back and forth many times.

Rey took one step into the room and stopped. Nothing exploded and no demons emerged from the walls to rip her to shreds so she continued another step and another and another until she was behind the desk, sinking into the high backed leather chair. From this point of view she could easily slid into Kylo's head.

"He's got an entire library up here too!" Rey gasped. One wall of the study, from ceiling to floor, was covered in bookcases stuffed to the brim. "I wonder if he was ever going to mention it?" she asked herself. Rey strode over to the bookshelves and stepped up onto the ladder. She dragged her fingers over the leather spines and gold lettering looking for a title that might be useful.

"Here's one. 'The Theory of Relative Dimension in Time and Space'. Sounds promising."

The book was just slightly out of Rey's reach and she had to brace one hand on the edge of the adjoining bookcase so that she could stretch across the space and reach the book. Under her palm she felt a ridge which sunk into the bookcase under the pressure of her grip. She heard a click and the bookcase at the far end of the room slowly, silently swung open. Rey clambered down from the ladder and approached the entrance to the hidden room. Alarm bells were going off in her head telling her to stop walking, turn around and leave the room before Kylo came back. But her feet didn't listen to her brain and she stepped into the hidden room.

There was a torch near the entrance that Rey lit, casting light into the depths of the room. It seemed to stretch on forever, a dark stone corridor full of secrets. Rey hesitated, not sure if taking another step was worth it but she was saved from having to make that decision.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Rey was caught red handed, breaking the only rule she'd been given to follow. Rey turned around slowly, not eager to find out if his expression would be as cuttingly icy as his voice. Kylo was standing just a few feet away from her, fists clenched at his sides. His pale skin was splattered in blood from the hunt and his dark eyes were black with rage. For the first time since encountering the creature in the garden Rey felt really afraid.

"I asked you a question."

Kylo took one menacing step forward, then another, then another until he was almost nose to nose with Rey and she was backed up into a wall.

"I-I-I was just-"

"Just what?"

"Looking for answers!" Rey burst out. She had been looking for answers about how she got here, how she could leave, about him, about anything. "I just want to go home! I didn't mean to find this room! It was an accident. I just want to go home! I just want to go home," Rey dropped off to a whisper, not daring to meet Kylo's gaze. She half hoped that her current status as temporal enigma would earn her some sympathy.

"Then get out."

"What?"

Rey looked up in surprise. Kylo grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the hidden room. He hauled her across the study and Rey resisted the whole way, struggling to get her arm out of his painful grip.

"Stop it! You're hurting me! Kylo! Let me go-"

Kylo flung the study doors wide and threw Rey across the threshold. She stumbled and fell, burning the palms of her hands on the carpet. Anger fizzled up under her skin and she whipped her head around ready to give him a pice of her mind and a good smacking if that's what it came to but the sight of his face stopped the words in her throat and made her blood run cold.

His face was twisted and elongated, his mouth and nose beginning to merge into a snout. Fangs began to protrude from his jaw and his pale skin was mottled with black scales. His eyes had changed too, from dark brown to blood red. Rey choked on her scream and scrambled to her feet, stumbling backward a few paces. Beast-Kylo took a deep breath and roared at her, shaking her bones in her skin.

"GET OUT!"

His large hands crushed through the wooden doors, serrated claws making short work of the oak and Rey turned and ran as fast as she could, tripping and tumbling down stairs, past the library, past her bedroom and out the castle doors. Beast-Kylo's terrible cries were still echoing in her head as the snowstorm swallowed her up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was super sure that I didn't want to update this story anymore and then some people left really nice comments and I changed my mind :) so shoutout to those friendly people and also happy halloween!


	4. In the Woods Somewhere

The wall of solid stone did not yield to Kylo’s furious fists. The skin on his knuckles cracked and bled, smearing dark blood across the smooth surface and he drew his fist back, relishing in the feeling of tender, exposed flesh stretching across aching bone. He beat out his frustrations on the wall until the sun behind the clouds had begun to dip below the horizon and he couldn’t feel anything but the unforgiving searing pain in his hands. Kylo left the blood smeared wall behind, slamming the ruined doors of his study behind him. That girl had ruined everything. The only room in the entire castle that had remain untouched by his curse, destroyed in seconds. All because she couldn’t keep her nose out of things that didn’t concern her. A sharp surge of rage over took him and he seized a small marble bust from an alcove in the hallway and hurled it to the floor, smashing it into pieces.

  
The shattered marble, bright white against the dark floor, seemed to bring him out of his rage long enough to notice the small white and orange tabby cat curling around the banister at the foot of the stairs, staring up at him with curious yellow eyes. Kylo made it half way down the stairs before he deflated. BB-8 leapt up the steps to where he was now sitting and twined around his ankles, mewing. Kylo scooped the cat up and buried his face in the warm fur. BB-8 purred loudly and nuzzled his head against Kylo’s nose. The small animal sat for a few moments longer, the heat of its tiny body warming Kylo’s aching hands before he meowed once and leapt off his lap and disappeared down the stairs. Thinking the cat must be hungry Kylo got up and started to head for the kitchen. He could clean himself up later. Wounds never took too long to heal in this place anyway.

  
But BB-8 was no where to be found in the kitchen. Instead, following the sound of increasingly desperate yowls, Kylo found the cat scratching at the heavy castle doors. He looked out the window to see thick snow whirling outside at high speeds. BB-8 yowled louder and this time dug his claws into Kylo’s ankle.

  
“Ouch!” Kylo jumped and glared at the cat. BB-8 hissed and sat in front of the doors, staring at Kylo with glowing yellow eyes. “Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “She broke my trust! Am I supposed to just forgive her? Well? Am I?"

  
BB-8 remained unmoved by Kylo’s outburst. He sighed.

  
“I suppose it would be less that ideal if she died in  a snowstorm. Or if she got lost in the forest. Or if she was mauled to death in the forest by one of the predatory animals that live there."

  
BB-8 got up, walked over to Kylo, circled him once, and then returned to the doors. The cat looked over its shoulder at Kylo, as if to ask him what was taking so long.

  
“All right, fine. I’ll go get her before anything horrible happens. But you have to stay here. She would never forgive me if I let you become something else’s late night snack."

  
Seemingly satisfied with this answer, BB-8 dashed up a flight of stairs and watched Kylo leave the castle from his perch. Kylo hauled the doors open and, with one last look back at the cat, slipped out into the snowstorm.

 

  
The snow was a wall of white in front of her eyes. Rey wrapped her arms around herself and hunkered down behind a tree, trying to find shelter from the vicious storm. The wind whistled in her ears and beneath the screeching she thought she could hear a low, rumbling growl. She looked around, squinting through the snow for the source of the sound, praying that her ears were deceiving her. But the growling came again, much closer than she thought, and a huge hulking animal loomed out of the storm. It's claws were blacker than pitch and caked in blood and it's serrated yellow fangs dripped saliva onto the snow. Rey froze, her fear and anger at Kylo giving way to paralyzing terror. The creature advanced through the snow, head swinging low. It's snout twitched back and forth, scanning for Rey through the storm. From this diatance Rey could see the creatures eyes, with milky black irises. The creature was blind.

  
Slowly, using the howling storm to mask her movements, Rey slid backwards. The howling wind covered the sound of the snow crunching under her body as she moved. The creature, larger than a wolf, with serrated tusks, like a boar, was pressing its wet nose into the snow, trying to pick up her scent. Rey looked around wildly, searching for any kind of weapon. She spotted a low hanging branch, snapped off at the base by the weight of the snow, a few feet away. Surging to her feet, she lunged for the branch, seizing it and tearing it off the tree just as the wolf-creature lunged. She spun, swinging out with the branch, and caught the creature in the snout out of pure luck. She regained her footing as the creature recovered and adjusted her grip on the branch, preparing for the next attack. But before the creature could lunge an eerie chorus of howls broke through the storm. The creature whimpered and shrunk back into the snow. Rey Watched it disappear into the shadows of the trees, cold dread creeping up her spine. Through the darkness she could see several pairs of glowing yellow eyes approaching. A pack of the wolf creatures emerged from the forest, surrounding her on all sides, and Rey understood why the first creature had disappeared. These new creatures were not animals, they were monsters. Twice the size of the first creature, with serrated tusks twice as long and sharp, bloodstained claws, the monstrous pack salivated, their hot breath melting the snow beneath their snouts. Rey swallowed her fear and took a deep breath, preparing to fight to the death. She was fairly certain that this is where she was going to die, and as the first monster pounced, she said a brief prayer to any god listening that Kylo would take good care of BB-8, before she raised her improvised weapon and met the attack head on.

  
Kylo was tracking Rey’s footprints to the edge of the forest when they were over taken by the tracks of a wolf. As he got deeper into the forest he loosened the hunting knife strapped to his hip. When he heard a pack howling he drew the knife completely and headed towards the sound. He found Rey locked in a vicious fight with a pack of the creatures, armed with only a broken tree branch, trying to keep herself from being forced to the ground. The wolf had the branch squarely in its jaws and he heard the wood cracking, even over the wind. Without thinking Kylo hurled the knife, sinking it between the creature’s shoulders. The sudden weight of the wolf caused Rey’s knees to buckle and she disappeared beneath the rapidly bleeding body. The attention of the pack was now on him. The salivating monsters were looking for sport. He could tell from their formation that they were hunting for sport, not necessity. The leader of the pack snarled at him and Kylo snarled back, refelxivly. He felt the blood in his veins surge, hot, and felt his bones snap, reshaping into something far more sinister. He howled to the sky, the scream releasing the pain of the transformation, as his skull cracked and melted into another form. His back snapped in two, and fused together in a predatory hunch, and his hands hit the ground as heavy, clawed paws. The pack was closing in on him now, barking and growling, nipping at his tail and his wingtips. He let out a roar that shook snow off the trees and struck out, throwing one over confident wolf into a nearby boulder. His sharp predator’s ears caught the sound of the wolf’s neck breaking before the wind snatched it away. The pack, roused by the sudden death of a comrade, surged as one toward Kylo, fangs bared.  
  
Rey heaved the body of the wolf-creature off her, using her broken branch to keep its jaws occupied as she reached around its back to pull out the hunting knife. The creature wasn’t dead yet, and was trying its hardest to take her to the icy grave with it. Distantly she registered the wolf pack converging on something, or someone, else, but she was too focused on getting her hands on the blade protruding from her enemy’s back to take much notice. She wrenched the blade out at the same moment that the wolf ripped the branch out of her grip and the two rolled through the bloody snow in a violent flurry of teeth and knives. Rey barely avoided having her throat torn open by sacrificing her forearm to the jaws of the monster. She grit her teeth, forcing her pained cry out through her teeth, and thrust the knife into the wolf’s ribs. With Herculean effort she dragged the knife down, gutting the creature on top of her. The monster gurgled and bled out quickly, and Rey used the knife blade to pry its jaws open so she could extract her arms. There were deep wounds that were sluggishly bleeding and would have to be tended to at some point, but for the moment Rey was more concerned with the slaughter happening just feet to her left.

  
A massive creature with wings and terrible red eyes was locked in combat with three wolves. Their fellows lay strew in pieces at the winged creature’s feet. Rey recognized the span of the wings and the strange mottling of the scales on the snout almost immediately. She couldn’t fathom why Kylo had come looking for her, if he had been looking for her at all. Her train of thought was interrupted when Beast-Kylo collapsed forward under the weight of one of the wolves and it leapt on him from behind, using it’s enormous paws to pin his wings to the ground. The other two wolves took the signal to move in, gnashing their teeth. The noise that came out of Kylo then made Rey’s stomach twist. Without thinking she closed her fingers around the handle of the knife that was sticking up out of the snow and she hauled herself to her feet. She crossed the distance between them in a few long strides and flung herself on the back of one of the wolves, stabbing viciously with the knife until the animal beneath her stopped writhing. Her attack, as ill-advised as it may have been due to the extreme difference in size between herself and the creatures, allowed Kylo the breathing room to twist painfully and strike out at the wolf on his back. After that it was over in a few short moments, with Kylo surging forward one last time to tear at the final wolf with his fangs. Rey struggled to her feet, gripping the knife tightly, wiping blood off her face with her free hand.

  
Surrounded by the maimed bodies of the wolf pack, Beast-Kylo shrunk and contorted until black scales gave way to pale skin, and wings moulded back into shoulder blades and talons and claws retreated into fingers and toes. The only thing that didn’t change were the deep slashes and bite marks that mottled Kylo’s body. His knees buckled and Rey barely had the strength, or the presence of mind, to dive across the snow and catch him before he fell.  
  
Rey gathered up whatever scraps of Kylo’s clothes that she could and dressed him as well as possible. She used the rest to staunch the wound on her arm and then started dragging Kylo through the snow, back towards the castle. It was a long journey, and she had to stop to rest several times. Her head was spinning by the time she was in the shadow of the looming castle, and her fingers were numb. She pulled Kylo into the shadows and threw her weight against the heavy doors. They barely budged, oping less than an inch and Rey couldn’t stop the hysterical laugh that bubbled past her lips. She hit the door, open handed, a few times, before she threw her shoulder against the wood. A low, groaning creak issued from the hinges and the door slowly eased open. Rey collapsed with it, and hauled Kylo into the castle, half crawling until they were both safely in the foyer. She used the last of her strength to kick the doors closed and then let her head fall back onto the cold stone. BB-8 appeared, upsidedown, mewing and licking the blood off her cheek. Rey blinked a few times, trying, unsuccessfully, to chase the advancing darkness away. Her eyes closed with a quiet sigh, and she lay there, on the floor, next to Kylo, their hands just barely touching, as BB-8 prowled around them, keeping guard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so have a kind of violent christmas chapter that is only chirstmassy because of the time i'm posting it at and all the snow. i'm gonna see rouge one soon so i'll be back on the star wars bandwagon soon! but until then i'll just watch the force awakens on netflix.


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